Child Abduction: European and Russian Perspectives
Abstract
The paper studies one of the most topical issues arousing in international private law, i.e. international abduction of children by one of the parents. The first part of the article analyzes the majour provisions of the Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the civil law aspects of international Child Abduction (hereafter Convention); reveals the majour concepts of the Convention (abduction, rights of custody, right to access, Central body), specifies the conditions under which a child transferred to another country may be returned to the country of his regular residence and the cases when returning a child is impossible. The second part of the article studies the issues of applying the Convention in the EU, in particular two legal regimes established for the interaction between EU countries by the EU Council of November 27 2003 no 2201/2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility which operates in the EU and other countries (case study of Russia). Case practice is studied as to the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on abducting children. The case of Irina Belen'kaya shows the issues which used to arise before Russia joined the Convention and caused by the impossibility to enforce a foreign judicial decision in Russia and in France and the obstacles for an effective protection of children's interests, shows the role of the Central body which is the Ministry of Education and Science. Some circumstances have been specified as they hurdle the efficient implementation of the Convention in Russia, i.e. inconsistencies of some provisions of the Russian legislation with Convention (differences in the concepts of abduction, custody, lack of the definition in the Convention for the place to ordinary residence. Attention has been drawn to recent changes after Russia has joined the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Federal law of May 5, 2014 No 126-FZ).
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